I agree with James there, you can find some great free networking events from Meetup.com

There are also special 'speed networking' events where you get to meet alot of different people in a short amount of time, but unfortunately you don't get to spend much time with anyone in particular, it's more of, what do you do? how can we help eachother? let's exchange business cards and catchup over coffee sometime.

The NSW Business chamber have a great event call Networking at Night. It is open to both chamber members and non members as well. It is a paid event however I have had great success with these events from a networking perspective. There are a large amount of small business owners at these events ( get around 80-100 ppl each time). You can also do a 60 second soap box which is good to spruik your business.